House of Night 04. Untamed (House of Night Novels) - Softcover

Cast, P. C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312379838 ISBN 13: 9780312379834

Verlag: St. Martin's Griffin, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Enter the dark, magical world of the House of Night series by bestselling authors P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, a world very much like our own, except here vampyres have always existed.

"I should have kissed more than your hand... thought I'd have more time."

At the House of Night, Zoey Redbird has become great at losing.

In the span of a single week, she's gone from trusted leader to social exile. Her friends have turned their backs. Her allies are gone. The only ones left at her side are undead and unMarked.

As secrets surface and loyalties are tested, and Neferet declares war on humans, Zoey's life at the House of Night plunges into something darker and far more dangerous. An ancient evil is waking-and this time, survival may demand more than courage.

It may demand everything.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

#1 New York Times & #1 USA Today bestselling author P.C. CAST has more than 30 million books in print worldwide. She was born in the Midwest and after her tour in the USAF, she taught high school for 15 years before retiring to write full time. PC is a member of the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. Her novels have been awarded the prestigious: Oklahoma Book Award, YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award, Booksellers' Best, and many, many more. Ms. Cast lives in Oregon near her fabulous daughter, her adorable pack of dogs, her crazy Maine Coon, and a bunch of horses.

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Untamed

A House of Night NovelBy Cast, PC

St. Martin's Griffin

Copyright © 2008 Cast, PC
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312379834

UNTAMED (Chapter 1)

The caw! caw! cawing! of one stupid crow kept me up all night. (Well, more accurately, all day—’cause, you know, I’m a vampyre fledgling and we have that whole issue of day and night being turned around.) Anyway, I got zero sleep last night/day. But my crappy nonsleep is currently the easiest thing to deal with since life really sucks when your friends are pissed at you. I should know. I’m Zoey Redbird, currently the undisputed Queen of Making My Friends Pissed Land.

Persephone, the big sorrel mare who I could consider mine for as long as I lived at the House of Night, craned her head around and nuzzled my cheek. I kissed her soft muzzle and went back to brushing her sleek neck. Grooming Persephone always helped me think and made me feel better. And I definitely needed help with both of those things.

“Okay, so, I’ve managed to avoid the Big Confrontation for two days, but that can’t continue,” I told the mare. “Yes, I know they’re in the cafeteria right now, eating dinner while they hang out together being all buddy-buddy and totally leaving me out.”

Persephone snorted and went back to munching hay.

“Yeah, I think they’re being jerks, too. Sure, I did lie to them, but it was mostly by omission. And, yeah, I kept some stuff from them. Mostly for their own good.” I sighed. Well, the stuff about Stevie Rae being undead was for their own good. The stuff about me having a thing with Loren Blake—Vampyre Poet Laureate and professor at the House of Night—well, that was more for my own good. “But still.” Persephone flicked an ear back to listen to me. “They’re being really judgmental.”

Persephone snorted again. I sighed again. Crap. I couldn’t avoid them any longer.

After giving the sweet mare one last pat, I walked slowly out of her stall to the tack room and put up the array of currycombs and mane/tail brushes I’d been using on her for the past hour. I breathed deeply of the leather and horse smell, letting the soothing mixture ease my nerves. Catching my reflection in the smooth glass window of the tack room, I automatically ran my fingers through my dark hair, trying to make it look not so bedheady. I’d been Marked as a fledgling vampyre and moved to the House of Night for just over two months, but already my hair was noticeably thicker and longer. And supergood hair was only one of the many changes taking place with me. Some of them were invisible—like the fact that I had an affinity for all five of the elements. Some of them were very much visible—like the unique tattoos that framed my face in intricate, exotic swirls and then, unlike any other fledgling or adult vampyre, the sapphire design spread down my neck and shoulders, along my spine, and most recently, had moved around my waist, a little fact no one but my cat, Nala, our goddess Nyx, and I knew.

Like who could I show?

“Well, yesterday you had not one, but three boyfriends,” I told the me with the dark eyes and cynical half smile that was reflected in the glass. “But you fixed that, didn’t you? Today not only do you have zero boyfriends, but no one will ever trust you again for at least, I dunno, a gazillion years or so.” Well, except Aphrodite, who totally freaked and took off two days ago because she might have suddenly been turned back into a human, and Stevie Rae, who was chasing said freaked re-humaned Aphrodite because she might have caused the fledgling-to-human issue when I cast a circle and turned her from creepy undead dead kid to odd-red-tattooed-vampyre-but-herself-again kid. “Either way,” I told myself aloud, “you have managed to mess up just about everyone who has touched your life. Well done, you!”

My lip had actually started to quiver and I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. No. Bawling my eyes red wouldn’t do any good. I mean, seriously, if it did, then my friends and I would have kissed (well, not literally) and made up days ago. I was just going to have to face them and start trying to make things right.

The late December night was cool and a little misty. The gaslights lining the sidewalk that stretched from the stable and field house area of the school to the main building flickered with little haloes of yellow light, looking beautiful and old-worldly. Actually, the whole campus of the House of Night was gorgeous, and always made me think of something that belonged in an Arthurian legend more than in the twenty-first century. I love it here, I reminded myself. It’s home. It’s where I belong. I’ll make it right with my friends, and everything will be okay then.

I was chewing my lip and worrying about just exactly how I was going to make it right with my friends when my mental stressing was interrupted by a weird flapping noise that filled the air around me. Something about the sound sent a chill down my spine. I looked up. There was nothing above me but darkness and sky and the winter-bare limbs of the huge oaks that lined the sidewalk. I shivered, having a walking-over-my-grave moment as the night went from soft and misty to dark and malevolent.

Hang on—dark and malevolent? Well, that’s just silly! What I had heard was probably nothing more sinister than the wind rustling through the trees. Jeesh, I was losing it.

Shaking my head at myself, I kept walking but had taken only a couple of steps when it happened again. The weird flapping above me actually caused the air, which seemed ten degrees colder, to flutter wildly against my skin. I automatically flailed a hand up, imagining bats and spiders and all sorts of creepy things.

My fingers passed through nothingness, but it was frigid nothingness, and an icy pain sliced through my hand. Completely freaked out, I yelped and hugged my hand to my chest. For a moment I didn’t know what to do, and my body was numb with fear. The flapping was getting louder and the cold more intense when I finally managed to move. Ducking my head, I did the only thing I could think to do. I ran for the nearest door to the school.

After slipping inside, I slammed the thick wooden door behind me and, panting for breath, turned to peer through the little arched window in the center of it. The night shifted and swam before my eyes, like black paint poured down a dark page. Still, the terrible feeling of icy fear lingered within me. What was going on? Almost without realizing what I was doing, I whispered, “Fire, come to me. I need your warmth.”

Instantly the element responded, filling the air around me with the soothing heat of a hearth fire. Still staring out the little window, I pressed my palms against the rough wood of the door. “Out there,” I murmured. “Send your heat out there, too.” With a whoosh of warmth, the element moved from me, through the door, and poured into the night. There was a hissing sound, like steam rising from dry ice. The mist roiled, thick and soupy, giving me a sense of dizzy vertigo that made me a little nauseated, and the strange darkness began to evaporate. Then the heat completely beat away the chill, and as suddenly as it had begun, the night was once again quiet and familiar.

What had just happened?

My stinging hand drew my attention from the window. I looked down....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St. Martin's Griffin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312379838
• ISBN 13: 9780312379834
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland